Share some photography tops
Sharie you're really one of the "tops" here!
As requested, I'll share some digital photography "tips":
1.- Shoot in RAW. Use jpeg only if you're in a hurry. RAW keeps the whole info of the picture (like wav to mp3 comparison), and maybe it's not useful to you by now but later, if you progress in your photo skills, you will regret not having all of your pics in RAW.
2.- Get a pro software like Adobe Lightroom, DxO Photolab or Capture One. They will make your average pics look really great (with some patience). I prefer Adobe's solution, because it's the more widely used, so there are zillions of tutorials out there. Concentrate on one picture and spend time tweaking. One first step is to auto correct the pic and see what changes the app has done and check them with the original pic, it will familiarize you with the parameters.
3.- Avoid using Instagram filters. Or any mainstream filters, you won't learn anything by doing so.
4.- Spend some time on webs like 500px or Smugmug, there are others, but this two are one of the best I've tried. They show you the camera equipment the photographer used, so it's good for knowing about apertures, shutter speeds, focal distances, etc..
5.- Flickr is (almost) dead. It has been acquired by Smugmug. You can still use it as a cloud storage for your tons of smartphone pics, but it's not anymore seriously consider among pro users.
6.- Buy a camera with interchangeable lenses. DSLR or mirrorless. The two key concepts here are the camera sensor and the lens itself. A good starting point could be a 18-55mm lens, a 24-70mm lens or a prime one like the 35mm(for DX cameras) or 50mm (for FX cameras). These two primes simulates how the human eye watches a scene.
7.- A final advice (by now). Think twice before shooting. Wait to compose the scene you want to capture. Analyze the light, the focal length, the framing, etc. We're all tired of doing 2089328 shoots on the same subject, just to find the best one because we have a memory card and not a film roll...
Thanks for reading!